Separation and determination of fluindapyr enantiomers in cucumber and tomato and by supercritical fluid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

Fluindapyr is a pyrazolamide chiral fungicide of succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHIs) with two enantiomers. Pesticide enantiomers often exhibit different biological activities, toxicity due to their different enantioselectivity. Therefore, it is important to separate fluindapyr enantiomers and assess each enantiomer. In this study, fluindapyr enantiomers were baseline separated by supercritical fluid chromatography-mass spectrometry in 2 min. The limit of quantification (LOQ) of this method was 5 μg/kg. The developed method was applied to monitor the fluindapyr enantiomers in cucumber and tomato, the data showed that R-(-)-fluindapyr was preferentially degraded in tomato leaves, S-(+)-fluindapyr was preferentially degraded in cucumber leaves, and fluindapyr enantiomers had no enantioselective degradation behavior in two fruits. It is proved again that enantiomers have different enantioselective degradation behavior with the different plant species and even to different parts of the same plant. The enantioselectivity is likely to be caused by different biodegradation enzyme systems.